Hi everyone,

I’ve been a happy user of Fedora Workstation since Fedora 36 on my Surface Go 1.

I really enjoy Gnome and everything is set up the way I want to.

Since I was really happy with my setup I just wanted to be able to replicate it easily through Clonezilla so that I could port it on any future computer I’d get.

Sadly, even with the help of really helpful and knowledgeable users on Lemmy, it hasn’t worked (https://sh.itjust.works/post/25963065).

So now I’m left wondering if there could be a distribution that I’d enjoy and which would be easy to deploy on another computer as I’d hate to have to configure everything on every computer I’d get.

I love Gnome but I wouldn’t be against trying something else if necessary.

What distribution could meet my needs?

  • flashgnash@lemm.ee
    12·
    6 hours ago

    I’d jump on the bandwagon of nixos, I use it myself and love it, does exactly what you’re asking for

    However judging on some of your other comments it might be a better idea to just suck up having to manually rebuild until you understand the basics of Linux a little better

    (nixos more or less requires you understand programming syntax for writing your system config)

  • darkan15@lemmy.world
    7·
    5 hours ago

    I’m going to mention Ansible as I haven’t seen it mentioned, and it can be used to locally manage a reproducible build.

    It has already been mentioned, but as a minimum to replicate your system you need two things:

    • Transfer/copy your entire /home directory as there is where the majority of the configuration files of your system pertaining the software you use (there could be configs you could need on /etc and on /usr/local or other dir), that is why it is recommended to partition your disk on installation of your distro, so the /home directory is already separated, as if you reinstall in the same machine you don’t lose any configuration in addition to your personal documents/pictures/etc
    • Have a way to automatically install a list of programs/apps/drivers/libraries, and that is what something like a bash script, Ansible, nixOs, etc. could help you with.

    The truth is that using any of the tools in the second point requires learning a bunch, so if your skill level is still not there, there is some work to do to get there.

    • Lokidawg@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      ++. Yes, and not your standard Linux distro in design, never mind the hurdle of understanding Nix expressions and functional programming language. However, once tweaked, deployment on multiple machines is straightforward.

  • itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    18·
    8 hours ago

    For reproducibility, nothing really beats NixOS. That’s not really what you’re asking for, as that would not involve Clonezilla.

    If you’re frequently switching hardware, and want to have everything up and running, configured to your liking, in minutes, you’re gonna have fun with NixOS in the long term. But I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, it has a steep learning curve and does require you to enjoy some tinkering. Worth it, imo

    Otherwise, just pick a distro that you enjoy and create a separate home partition, when it’s time to switch you do a fresh install and clone only the home partition. That’ll get you 90% of the way to have your old setup on the new device

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.worksOP
      41·
      7 hours ago

      But what is a home partition?

      I mean for me the problem is backing up my settings (including for every app) and I don’t know where they are saved.

      Backing up my pictures, documents and others isn’t a problem.

      • flashgnash@lemm.ee
        5·
        6 hours ago

        Your settings for the most part are in your home directory, generally when you install a Linux system everything that isn’t the bootloader is on one partition (system, installed applications, etc)

        Your home directory is for anything specific to your user, meaning your downloads folder, your pictures, documents and also your .config folder which holds 90% of the config files

        There are some weird ones that have directories outside of home, afaik that’s stuff like network manager remembering your saved networks that runs outside of your user context

  • TeryVeneno@lemmy.ml
    2·
    5 hours ago

    If you want something simple that does this for you: check out SaveDesktop. I’m not sure if it will meet every need, but it works for me when I need to switch.

  • Lucy :3
    2·
    5 hours ago

    If you want to actually replicate one to one - any distro, and use dd or netcat to transfer the root partition. Reinstall the bootloader, update BLKIDs and you’re done. Worked for me multiple times.

  • nfms@lemmy.mlEnglish
    101·
    8 hours ago

    NixOS is the sort answer. It’s reproducible across hardware. But I’ve never tested it.

  • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    7 hours ago

    Personally, I use Fedora Silverblue and use bash scripts for reproducibility. To set up a new system, all I need to to is install, reboot, run my bash script, reboot, and my system is 90% configured. With bash scripts, I am able to reproduce more of my system than I could when I used NixOS.

    A lot of people recommend Nix, but the thing about Nix is that you’re only declaring how the system is configured. Not your home folder. You need to rely on third party tools for that.

    Bash scripts can configure system and home folder. They can also be used on any distro, whereas a Nix configuration file only works on NixOS.

    Though the worst part about any new install is just signing back into everything, especially an annoyance when you have proper 2FA setup. Bash scripts or Nix can’t solve that unless you migrate data over.

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.worksOP
      21·
      6 hours ago

      What is a bash script? Is it something I’d have to write mysel using the terminal? Sorry but my skills are quite limited for now.

      • Leaflet@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        6 hours ago

        Yes, it’s something you write yourself. Bash is the language you use when you use the terminal. A bash script is just many lines of bash commands.

        A bash script could be as simple as

        dnf install package1 package2 package3
dnf remove package4 package5 package6

        This script automates installing some packages and removing some packages. The bash script I use does a lot more, such as running commands to configure Gnome how I like it.

        If you’re not comfortable with the terminal, I would definitely recommend staying away from NixOS. To declaratively/reproducibly set up the system, it uses a language called Nix that is a fair bit more complicated than bash. It’s also just very different from traditional Linux systems like Fedora or Ubuntu.

  • SavvyWolf@pawb.socialEnglish
    2·
    6 hours ago

    So the question is this: Do you want to be able to reproduce the system exactly, or are you fine taking a few hours to reinstall software. If you’re just wanting to keep settings and data for apps rather than the apps themselves, you can cut down on your storage requirements a lot.

    If it’s the latter, all of your user settings should be in your home directory (“/home/username” or just “~”). If you back that up, you should be able to recover your settings and data on a fresh install of your distro of choice.

  • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
    1·
    5 hours ago

    Can you just make a base image and then clone the image across. You would need to change the machine ID but that’s pretty easy to do.

    Alternatively you could use Ansible pull on a fresh install to set everything up

  • Tobias Hunger@programming.dev
    4·
    7 hours ago

    Any of the many immutable distros (vanilla os, fedora silverblue, bluefin, aeon, endless os, pure os, …) will all obviously work.

    Most of your customizations will live in your home directory anyway, so the details of the host OS do not matter too much. As long as it comes with the UI you like, you will be mostly fine. And yku said you like gnome, that installs many apps from flathub anyway and they work just fine from there.

    For development work you just set up a distrobox/toolbox container and are ready to go with everything you need. I much prefer that over working on the “real system” as I can have different environments for different projects and do not have to polute my system with all kinds of dependencies that are useless to the functionality of my system.

    NixOS is ofmcourse also an option and is quasi-immutable, but it is also much more complicated to manage.

  • hanke@feddit.nu
    61·
    8 hours ago

    NixOS is exactly what you want.

    You declare your configs in a way that you can just copy them to another computer and it willbe configured the same way.

    I’ve never tried it my self, but I might for my next machine.

  • frankenswine@lemmy.world
    73·
    8 hours ago

    As a counterpoint to the majority of answers here, I’d love to suggest GNU Guix as the best answer. Like Nix, but enhanced for freedom with a formidable governance model. Built on freedom. Built to last forever. Also easier and more beautiful

      • frankenswine@lemmy.world
        21·
        7 hours ago

        it is built so that non-free packages can be made easily available (e.g. the non-guix channel). being sort of a meta-OS, already a bunch of operating systems were built on top of it, arguably easier to just get started as a novice

  • Jure Repinc@lemmy.mlEnglish
    4·
    8 hours ago

    Cloning the system and home partitions always worked fine for me with openSUSE Tumbleweed with KDE Plasma desktop. Another option openSUSE offers is AutoYaST

    AutoYaST is a system for unattended mass deployment of openSUSE Leap systems. It uses an AutoYaST profile that contains installation and configuration data.